“We’ll leave,” said Tod quickly.
“Go outside, Fred. Kenton can help.”
“Wowee, Kenton is here too?” asked Fred quietly. Fred limped to the open door. “Hide your eyes, Kenton, a naked man is coming through the door, buh, buh, half-naked.”
Jiri slowly pulled the door shut and looked at the rake handle lying by Tod’s feet.
Ryan’s voice quivered a little. “Jiri, can I go?”
Jiri shook his head, his nostrils flaring, his breathing so loud that all the boys could hear it above the steam hissing through the dome.
“C’mon, dude,” said Tod. “There’s four of us.”
Jiri unzipped his jacket. He hung it from the door handle. He crossed his arms over the front of his sweater and pulled it off. His stomach was hard. A skull tattoo rested just above his belly button. A wolf howled at a moon on one shoulder. His arms were strong, his biceps bulging. They were covered in tattoos: swastika, black widow, barbed wire. The word “Oi” surrounded by an oak leaf cluster. Other words in Czech. Gothic style.
Jiri cracked his knuckles and stepped forward.
Fred had been in the bathtub for so long that Jack had checked on him twice to make sure he was okay. He could hear the water draining and then he heard the faucet gushing again. This had happened at least four times so far. Jack never had a chance to see Fred that night. He stayed in his room and said his stomach hurt.
Marilyn opened her front door in the morning and found two pieces of wood lying on her porch. It was a hockey stick, broken in half. She thought nothing of it and tossed the pieces in a garbage can outside. She never noticed Fred’s name or her son’s handwriting on the shaft.
ten
Fred licked his lips and slowly unfolded the flap on the envelope that Badger had handed him. He peered inside and slowly pulled out a ticket. He examined both sides very carefully. “Um, um, the Chicago Blackhawks,” Fred gushed. “I thank you so much.”
The hockey ticket had an immediate effect. Fred’s face brightened and the hazy images of something terrible in a steamy room with lots of flowers vanished momentarily. Fred slid the ticket back into the envelope and stuck it in his pocket.
“I should keep it,” said Badger.
“No you shouldn’t.”
“Jack might find it.”
“I will hide it.”
Badger wrote a note in big block letters. “I’m leaving us plenty of time because I can only handle two hundred miles a day.” He handed the note to Fred.
The note said to meet at the library on September 21 at 2:00 P.M. “Um, um, there is only one thing wrong. We should meet at O’Malleys because that is where we always eat before a hockey game.”
“You can get into the city okay?”
Fred held up a thumb like he was hitchhiking. Badger grabbed the note and scribbled out the library and wrote O’Malleys.
Fred took the note and kissed it. “When are you going to teach me to use the video camera?”
“We’ll have plenty of time for that.”
“Do we have to get him at the game or can we do it afterwards? I wouldn’t mind catching a period or two.”
“It depends if we can smuggle the camera in. If not, we’ll get him after the game. We’re going to have to stay on our toes, Fred. We’ll have to adapt and strike with lightning precision.”
“Um, um, lightning precision,” said Fred slowly as he pulled out his dime novel cover and began scribbling.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“Don’t worry I have found a good hiding place.”
“I mean take things from my house without asking. That’s an antique book.”
“Sorry, buh, buh, I keep it in a safe place so Papa Joe won’t find it.”
Badger sighed and replaced one portable oxygen tank with another as quickly as he used to extinguish, unwrap and light his cigars. “Where?” asked Badger, fastening his tubing to the full tank.
“Under his mattress.” Fred giggled. “Do you really think we will start a revolution?”
“The line has been drawn, Fred. You’re either with us or you’re with them. You either choose to fight or you surrender the planet.”
“Buh, buh, Papa Joe says he just moved a hockey team, he didn’t drop a nuclear bomb.”
“You don’t choose your battles. They choose you.”
“We have been chosen,” said Fred, thinking hard, “unless, of course, Andy changes his mind and brings my team back, then we can just walk to the arena like the old days and be menaces to society and not revolutionaries.”
Badger pulled the lamb’s horn from his pocket. He held it out to Fred. “He’s not bringing your boys back.” Both men wrapped a hand around it.
“Comrades,” said Badger.
“Comrades,” said Fred.
The two made their way under the relentless sun to Marilyn’s salvage yard. Fred wasn’t sure if Mrs. Feniak would sell anything to Badger because she thought he was a terrorist, but it was worth a knock on the door. A knock that brought no response because she wasn’t home.
Badger had a list of parts he was looking to get replaced before they started their road trip. It would be too risky in his old motorhome otherwise, he said.
He needed an alternator, a fender, a headlight, a tire, hoses for water and air conditioning, brake shoes and a side mirror. Fred decided they should just start picking things out and Badger could leave the money with him. So Fred and Badger sashayed into the salvage yard like they owned the place
Badger, oxygen tank strapped to his back, had found a headlight, a side mirror and a fender. The two of them came around a corner of tires piled high like Fred’s clothes and Badger stopped in his tracks. He dropped the side mirror and Fred picked it up right away to make sure it wasn’t broken. Badger walked slowly forward. His hand touched the side of a van and he continued to touch the hot metal from one end to the other and around. When he emerged from the other side of the 1967 Volkswagen van, Fred was convinced that Badger had snapped.
“Granma,” whispered Badger. “Flin Flon.”
“Bobby Clarke,” said Fred, unsuccessfully trying to keep up.
“What about the dogs?” asked Badger calmly, looking behind where Fred was standing.
“What dogs?”
“Those dogs.”
Fred turned. Bonnie and Clyde were crouched low to the ground, snarling, drooling, moving toward him.
“Oh, um, um, I forgot about them. We are dead.”
A mad dash to the safety of the van had saved both men. But they were trapped, sitting in the front seats as Bonnie and Clyde circled like the wild beasts they were.
“Someone will be home soon,” said Fred, “so we just sit tight and wait I suppose.”
Badger didn’t care about the dogs any more. He caressed the steering wheel like the neck of an old lover.
Fred cared about the dogs a lot. He watched them pacing and snarling. “The predatory capitalists have us surrounded. Or maybe they are the dogs of war.”
“Same thing,” whispered Badger, rubbing his fingers along the red leather of the dashboard.
Fred watched as Badger’s motorhome chugged away from the Feniaks’ driveway. Kenton had arrived home from school first. He had heard the barking, lured Bonnie and Clyde into the house and set Fred and Badger free. Badger seemed distracted beyond belief, and Fred told him so. He almost forgot to pay Kenton for the fender, side mirror and headlight.
In spite of Badger’s altered state, Fred checked his pocket to see that he still had his ticket, to be sure he wasn’t dreaming. But dream he did. Georgie Boy. Badger. The United States of America. Andrew Madison.
Badger had pulled over before he reached the highway. He had to. It was all too much. The Volkswagen van. The farmer in the potato field who he was now watching. Badger was laughing hysterically. So much so that he had tears dropping from his jaw. “Juliette,” he whispered. “Juliette.”
Everything contracted, melded, then burst into swirling
incandescent colours. They burned. Badger shrieked and laughed and shrieked again. He had no idea he had run out of oxygen.
eleven
The sweltering days passed lazily but anxiously for Fred. Jack didn’t pay too much attention to Fred’s anxiety because he knew that the fate of the lambs sometimes weighed heavily upon him as summer drew to a close. And he had finally heard the rumours about what had happened to Fred in Bridget’s greenhouse.
Jiri had been by the farm several times, once to tell Jack that Bridget was pregnant. Jack had asked him what had happened in the greenhouse but Jiri wasn’t talking. And Jack had a tough time talking as well. Ever since he had found out that Jiri had rescued Fred he had been tongue-tied around him. He’d just stand and stare. For Jack, it was like standing next to Shane.
Jack thought he had the whole story. He had heard that Fred had had muscle cream smeared on his balls. He didn’t know about the rake handle. If he had, he probably would have taken Fred to a shrink …after dragging Tod out behind the barn and showing him some farm tools that would make rake handles seem gentle.
Bridget didn’t even know that her rake had been broken. Jiri had snuck back the next morning with a new one. Marilyn eventually figured out why she had found a busted hockey stick on her porch. And why her eldest son had ended up with thirty stitches to close a cut over his cheek. Knowing he had fresh stitches, she punched Ryan in the stomach and almost knocked the wind out of him. Unlike Jack, Marilyn had heard about the rake handle.
Jack was relieved that Fred’s anxiety had somewhat stemmed the tide of stink bombs and firecracker attacks. Fred threw the occasional clump of dirt at his tractor, but he still missed every time.
Fred spent most of his evenings playing checkers by himself in the kitchen. In the mornings he rode his bike, and when pickup trucks approached his heart froze. Sometimes he didn’t remember why. When he did, he rode faster until the burning in his left leg became unbearable. In the afternoons Fred rode a hammock Jack had rigged for him. He ate bags of ice cream treats and drank plenty of Schweppes raspberry ginger ale.
It wasn’t just Fred who was getting fattened up in August. The lambs were, as well. Jack was pleased to see them growing bigger and stronger and, like any good sheep farmer, he kept his mind on the numbers, the weights and the measurements rather than what Fred kept his on: those white, fluffy muffins he called his friends.
In between Jack’s weighing of the lambs and a few meagre sales of firewood, there were visits to the bank. Jack now had a loan agreement on his desk. He even had a pen in his hand. But he couldn’t do it. His pride was as old as the first dime he had received for mowing a lawn. His pension cheque was only a week away.
Fred noticed that the roasting chickens Jack kept frozen in the basement were finding their way to the dinner table almost every night. As were potatoes. They ate lots of potatoes. But steaks weren’t a guarantee any more. The grocery runs, which usually resulted in six bags, now only brought three. Extras like ice cream bars were on Fred’s nickel. He didn’t seem to mind, except when Jack ate one.
“Are we poor?” asked Fred one evening.
“We’re holding our own.”
“Is there anything I can do, buh, buh, maybe pay more rent or something, please say no.”
“We’re gonna have some meat for sale soon.”
“Um, um, does it hurt?”
“They don’t feel a thing.”
“Do they know what is happening when they leave because, as you know, they have a great life here and then one day you load them into a trailer, so do you think they are happy to go for a car ride or maybe scared out of their wits because they know that something bad is coming?”
“They’re just scared because it’s something new.”
“I think they know and are afraid.” Fred stared at the bones on his plate. “Why don’t I care about chickens?”
Jack cleared Fred’s plate. “Um, um, you look tired, do you want me to do the dishes?”
Jack turned the tap and started scrubbing.
“Did you know that if you add an ‘s’ to laughter it becomes slaughter? Um, um, you have never seen a lamb get slaughtered have you?”
“No, and I don’t need to.”
“Don’t you think you should watch to make sure the man is not hurting them too much?”
“I’ve known Billy for years. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Does he shoot them?”
“No.”
“Um, um, does he stab them in the head?”
“He puts them to sleep. It’s over fast.”
“Does he take them to the nap room as soon as they get off the bus?”
“No, they spend the night in a corral.”
“How come?”
“They get all worked up from being transported and that puts more blood in the muscle and then the meat’s too tough. It’s better to let ’em settle down overnight.”
“Wowee, so they have all night to think about it?”
“They’re not thinking about anything!” exclaimed Jack.
“Um, um, to be that close to the killing means they can probably smell it. I couldn’t sleep a wink.”
The euphoria of taking a road trip to the United States was swamped, when Fred was able to remember the real reason for going, by concern that eventually gave way to fear.
Fred became so worried he almost asked Jack for advice. But before uttering a word he rushed to Jack’s bedroom and pulled the dime novel cover from under the mattress. Near the bottom, Fred found what he was looking for: Don’t tell anyone, especially Papa Joe.
He had another close call after he’d just come in and while taking his shoes off was muttering something about the Chicago Blackhawks. Jack had come up the stairs with bacon he’d taken out of the freezer. Fred was startled. Jack asked him jokingly if the Blackhawks were his favourite team now. Fred didn’t laugh. He stared at Jack looking as fierce and mean as any criminal Jack had put away. Jack, of course, thought Fred was joking. But he wasn’t. He stormed off to his bedroom.
So Fred was on his own to wrestle with his dilemma. Well, not entirely alone. As he told Taillon, “I talked to the minister and he was someone I thought I could trust.” Fred sat near Taillon, who was keeping a close watch on the lambs and ewes. Fred tried not to look at the lambs. “Buh, buh, I told him that me and a friend might get into big trouble if we were caught doing something bad and I didn’t know if we should do it or not.”
Taillon looked over at a passing truck. “C’mon, c’mon, stop pretending you are not listening.” Taillon finally turned in Fred’s direction, following a dragonfly. “Okay, okay, he said that if there was criminal activity then he could not promise he would keep his mouth shut. I said, excuse me for living, whatever happened to the secret agreements that priests make with their flock, especially with little boys, and he said that he was a minister and I said, how dare you, you have played a trick because I have already told you that something bad is coming.” Fred let out a big sigh. “I hope I did not spill the beans on the floor.”
Fred watched as the shadows grew long beside the barn. A sharp scent of wild mint flowers from a nearby pond wafted across the grass. It smelled like deep heating rub. His hand was back on Claudia’s breast, her nipple hard, Tod was snapping the rake in half, his eyes sinister, and Fred was wandering the concourse of the Keystone Centre, in full equipment, searching for his teammates.
“Buh, buh, I hope Claudia doesn’t hate me. I think she is young and immature just like I am. I think she wants to be wiser just as much as I do. And what does it mean to be wiser, you ask?” Taillon rolled over and began licking his anus. “Um, um, exactly.”
The wind shifted, the smell of wild mint flowers disappeared and Fred’s eyes lit up. “I want to thank you again for chasing me in the truck, um, um, don’t cry for me Argentina because I once saw a boy get muscle cream on his balls in high school and I thought it was funny, buh, buh, I guess a stick up the bum is not as funny.” Taillon had moved aw
ay to his sheepskin on the mound. “Okay, bye.”
twelve
Jack was on his side, heart pounding, trying to read his bedside clock. The dream had shattered his sleep a full hour before he normally woke up.
He had never milked a cow in his life, but there he was, on bended knee, filling a bucket. Squirt. Squirt. He saw someone, off on a hill, small against the sky. Too far away to be any kind of threat. But like all bad dreams there was a premonition of something wrong. The figure started coming his way, kaffiyeh flapping in the wind. Walking fast. Big, long strides. He knew he should get out of there but there was enough of Jack in the dream that he didn’t want to look like a fool. And then he thought that it was Yasser Arafat. But then he realized it was Fred. And Fred didn’t say a word, just kept walking, flat-face crazy, eyes black, the gun, bang, you’re dead.
Jack’s ears were still ringing. He rolled over. Dink was there, curled in a ball. One eyelid opened. Jack touched the top of Dink’s head. He needed contact with something warm.
The coffee maker groaned on the counter. Jack couldn’t sleep and had climbed out of bed early. He stubbed out his cigarette, poured the rest of his coffee into his portable mug, threw open the back door and filled his lungs with the bracing scent of the morning. Nothing was ever going to beat that feeling. A farm. His farm. Up before sunrise. Senses crackling from a good mug of coffee and a couple of smokes.
It may have been dark, but Jack saw trouble right away. He stepped down from the porch. There was a car parked behind his truck. Someone was slumped in the driver’s seat. It was too early for anyone to be sitting there like that.
Jack remembered a book about a farmer getting tied up and having his throat slit because bandits thought he had a safe full of money. His hand went instinctively to his belt, where his service revolver used to hang. By the time he neared the driver’s door, his hands were trembling. He tried to get a look at who was inside without being seen.
The Horn of a Lamb Page 27
